


What Pulls Us Apart

by MonstrousRegiment



Category: Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Genre: Eric has issues, F/M, also William is a little shit, but yeah issues, cavalier use of William, njew issues, not the issues in the movie, the horse just wants him to make up his mind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-14 18:58:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonstrousRegiment/pseuds/MonstrousRegiment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric thinks of the many things he can say to discourage her. That he is a widow, older, a drunkard, poor and miserable, wretched, god-forsaken, uneducated and unappreciated by court and peoples alike. He stands there in his mud-and-blood splattered leather clothes, in the beautiful green garden in front of her in her fine gown, and tall as he is he is the smallest.</p>
<p>Every one of those reasons she will argue. <i>They didn’t stop you from kissing me</i>, she will say, and she will be right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A New Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PippinPips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PippinPips/gifts).



He awakes beneath a ceiling made of stone, a soft feather-bed beneath him, and for a brief, breath-stopping moment the dislocation of his surroundings terrifies him.

Then he remembers. The castle. The battle. 

He aches and he is weary in ways he hardly remembers being in many a year. Though far from the physical peak he once could boast, the Huntsman is by no means out of shape, and the soreness of his abused muscles startles him when he tries to sit up. In the night, his muscles have gone cold and stiffness has set in. 

His right shoulder and arm have taken the worst damage. Biting back a curse, he sits up and manages to pull the shirt away from his skin; indeed, the joint of his right shoulder is swollen and darkly bruised. The shower of obsidian shards had packed quite a punch against his shield. 

He contemplates lying back in the bed and falling back asleep. The temptation is nearly overpowering. He is fatigued still, nowhere near full recovery for the wounds he had sustained, and although strong and still young in years, he is not, in fact, a warrior. This sort of violence is not normally what he is exposed to. 

But just as he angles himself to lie on his left, less abused, side, there is a firm knock on the closed door of the bedroom he has been given. The Huntsman realizes, now, that he must have been awaken by something. There is another knock, insistent, and a voice calling on the other side of the door. 

Eric opens his mouth to call the visitor in, and only then realizes he has latched the door. Of course he has; the castle is a foreign pace to him, alien and strange, unfamiliar. He would not have slept easy, unprotected. 

With a grunt, he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and plants his bare feet on the cold stones of the floor, flinching. 

“Aye,” he calls out, voice gravelly with sleep. “Just a moment.”

Getting to his feet requires a lot more effort than he would like to admit. Taut, sore muscles pull as he straightens. He snatches up his breeches and pulls them on, tying them only loosely as he limps to the door and unlatches it. His right thigh complains the movements. Maybe he is getting on in years. 

The door swings open even as he walks back to the bed and sits on the edge, rubbing his thigh. 

“You look like death warmed over,” William says bluntly, entering without closing the door. 

“Thank ye kindly,” Erik mutters. 

“Snow’s been looking for you for hours,” continued the boy, pouring water into the basin. “Why don’t you wash up and go find her?” 

“I’ve been here all along,” Erik replies, gritting his teeth. 

“I don’t think it crossed her mind that you’d be sleeping in this late,” William points out, arching a brow. “Sort yourself out and go find her. You’re not meant to keep a Queen waiting.” 

“Queens,” sighs Eric, remembering the one other Queen that demanded his immediate presence. It feels like matters of royalty and court are always bad news for men such as a lowly Huntsman. 

“Yes, queens,” says William, over his shoulder, as he turns and leaves, leaving the door ajar. “They’re not supposed to wait!”

Eric stumbles back to his feet, closes the door, and devotes a long moment to walking in circles around his room, trying to soothe the soreness of his muscles a bit. He doubts Snow White would much mind he took his time, even if she is looking for him, and will be more concerned than glad if he shows up limping. 

Once he can stand straight, he washes his face and neck, ties back his hair, and dresses. He has no spare clothes, and he isn’t about to ask servants to get him some, even though William insists that is their job. No one has ever waited on Eric, and he’s lived this long well enough. In his breeches and old shirt, he looks as though he’s just been trampled on by horses, but it’ll do. 

Upon asking a servant for directions, he’s told that the Princess is in the gardens. It takes Eric a good long while to find his way towards them, because he doesn’t know the lay of the castle, but wherever he goes he has to climb down bloody endless stretches of stairs that disagree with his aching leg muscles. 

By the time he does find the gardens, he not only looks like he’s been ran over by a carriage and its four horses, that’s also precisely how he feels. 

He finds Snow White with a cluster of young court ladies, and almost immediately considers turning on his heel and making a swift escape. Unfortunately just as he prepares to turn around William, who is hanging close to the fringe of the group attempting by all means to elude attention (and failing) has spotted him, and is unwilling to suffer on his own. 

And then Snow White is turning and looking at him, soft sweet smile and sea blue-green eyes, and he knows he won’t be leaving. Somewhat uncertain, he makes his way over and nods at the ladies, and sidles over by William, thinking perhaps the Duke’s son will take pity on his discomfort and engage him in male conversation. 

This is not what happens. William does make a brave attempt to turn their combined attention to the matter of the recovering woods, but girls filter into the conversation, and whatever discomforts William had hoped to spare him by speaking of decidedly un-lady-like things is brought upon him in any case. 

The Huntsman has never been good with women, especially not delicate courtly women. Even his accent is coarse and uneducated, and he doesn’t know how to school it into a more polite thing. He tries to let William take up most of the conversation, and the Dukeling does so readily enough, glancing at him in what Eric supposes is an invitation to contribute. He truly has nothing to say, though, and begins to edge back from the group, claiming he has duties to attend to. 

Which is when Snow White appears at his elbow, pulling him gently and unobtrusively away, into the maze. 

“You looked in need of saving,” she laughs quietly. 

“Aye, that was scarier than any trolls,” he agrees, glancing back over his shoulder. “I almost feel sorry for leaving William behind.”

“He’s grown up to entertain courtiers,” Snow White points out. “Where have you been all morning? The dwarves were looking for you.”

“I overslept,” the Huntsman says honestly. “I am not used to the stresses of wars. You must be shocked, being such a warrior yerself.” 

Snow White grinned. “Oh, yes, these things happen to me all the time. I’m used to it.” 

“You look it,” he comments flatly, brushing a finger very lightly over the darkening bruise on her jaw, where Ravenna backhanded her. 

“I must be a sight, for a Princess.”

“At least now ye’re clean,” the Huntsman shrugs. 

Snow White gives him a wide, blinding smile. Eric almost feels the urge to shield his eyes, it’s so bright. 

“William says you’re a terror and won’t let anyone find you clothes.” 

“These fit me fine,” he protests. 

“They’re torn and ruined,” the Princess laughs. “This is the court, Huntsman, not the Forest. I would just as soon not expose you to those who will disapprove you.” 

“Do _you_ disapprove?” 

Her whole face softens into a fond, gentle expression. “You know I care little for you such things. But you’re so uncomfortable already. Don’t think I cannot tell.”

Eric shrugs. “I am a Huntsman, not a courtly lad. Ye’ve got William for that.”

Snow White tilts her head in concession, dark hair swaying like a silken curtain around her lovely face. Eric thinks of telling her she looks beautiful in this light, of how happy he is she is where she rightfully belongs at last, of the pride he feels about the ways eh holds herself in battle and in peace, of grasping her small delicate hand and kissing its back. 

He says, “I will leave.”

It shocks them both, but her the worst. 

“What?”

The Huntsman pauses a moment, considers himself and his life and what he is used to, and swiftly arrives at the understanding that he most certainly does not belong in court. Nor anywhere near it. 

“I have my living to make,” he says reluctantly, and holds up a hand when Snow’s mouth opens. “If ye offer me money, I leave this instant.”

Snow’s teeth click together. She looks distraught. It pains Eric to see her thus, but he can’t as well turn his mind around now. Her pain doesn’t change the circumstances. Whatever brews between them, thus far new and innocent, there is no room for it in their lives. Eric knows his place; it is not at Snow White’s side. 

“I’ll wait till the coronation,” he continues. “There’s no point in living before.”

“There’s no need to leave after either,” she says, her small hand landing in his arm, light as a feather and yet, somehow, heavy as an anchor. Erik gently disengages. 

“Like I said, I have my living. And a Queen has no need of a hunter.” 

“I,” Snow White flounders momentarily. “Of course I do.”

“Do ye?” Eric arches a brow. “Ye have no others hunters willing and able to satisfy the castle’s needs?”

The princess blinks, and Eric watches with some trepidation as resolve crystallizes in her clear blue-green eyes, lips forming a firm line. 

“I have need of you, Eric. You personally.”

Eric grits his teeth. “No.”

“No?” Snow frowns. 

“Indeed, _no_ ,” he growls. 

“I did not take you for a mind-reader, Huntsman.”

“Oh, aye, one of my many hidden talents,” replies he, bitterly. 

“You promised me you would stay, Eric.”

“When a war was brewing, princess.”

“So now that peace has found us you decide to leave me?”

“You’ve no need of me,” he stressed, growing heated with anger. “Ye cannot demand I linger pointlessly, when I have no duty nor place in the court.”

“I am not speaking of the court,” she murmurs. 

“What you do speak of is a naïve girl’s dream,” says he, suddenly very tired. 

“You think me naïve?” and her face has grown pale, and though the angle of her fine brows or mouth has not changed, there is a darker shade in her eyes, and she holds herself utterly still. 

“Queen or no, warrior or no, you are still but a girl on the cusp of womanhood.”

Her eyes flick down briefly, and when she looks back at him, her expression is more guarded, though no less stubborn. “It is my age then that makes you hesitate?”

“Your age is only one of the _many reasons_.”

“What are the others?” 

Eric grunts and starts walking away, long fluid strides he knows she will have to rush to keep up with. He’s never been good with words, and the last thing he wants is to have this conversation with her. 

“What are the others, Huntsman? You owe me an explanation.”

He whirls on her, incredulous. “I _owe_ ye?”

She lifts her chin, every inch the Queen she has not yet become. 

“I know you kissed me,” she says, and it’s a challenge. He grows very still. “I remember your words that night. So if you will walk away from this now, then yes; you owe me an explanation.”

Eric thinks of the many things he can say to discourage her. That he is a widow, older, a drunkard, poor and miserable, wretched, god-forsaken, uneducated and unappreciated by court and peoples alike. He stands there in his mud-and-blood splattered leather clothes, in the beautiful green garden in front of her in her fine gown, and tall as he is he is the smallest.

Every one of those reasons she will argue. _They didn’t stop you from kissing me_ , she will say, and she will be right. 

But she was gone then and now she is not, she stands here straight and proud and full of brilliant, splendid life. Her eyes are blue fire and oh, he wants nothing but to crush her to his chest and kiss her mouth open, but—but. 

She is the Queen. 

“Why?” she asks, reaching for him. 

He steps back. Smiles. 

“I am a coward,” he says simply.

Her face changes immediately and she opens her mouth to deny it, but Eric turns around and leaves her. 

He successfully avoids her for the next two days, until the coronation. He had hoped to leave before all the guests arrived at the castle, but people are bubbling with excitement and arrive ridiculously early. Even worse, minutes before when he thinks he might pull off disappearing, William tracks him down and stares at him stonily until Eric makes himself presentable and trails behind him through the corridors. 

She is wearing a beautiful gown, and looks as lovely as she always does, but even more so there in her throne standing proud and superb. 

He thinks how beautiful she is, and how noble and good and how well she will rule. He thinks of how he’ll never be what she needs or even deserves. 

But he has the kiss, he thinks. That kiss is his. 

She looks for something in the crowd, the little girl he found in the forest turned into a goddess, and he smiles and steps out of the crowd, because he’s never been good with protocol, anyway. He nods at her. She smiles. 

In the next moment the crowd erupts into cheers of joy and the feasting and delighting begins. Quietly, unnoticed, Eric slips away. Gathers his tings and leaves the castle undisturbed. He doesn’t intend to see her again.

He’ll always have the kiss. It’ll have to be enough.


	2. The Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I suppose you recognized it by my axe buried in its shoulder?” he asks. 
> 
> William arches a brow, “I regret to say by the time he reached us he and your axe had parted company.”
> 
> “Pity,” says Eric, eyes falling shut. “T’was a fine axe.”

He scrambles to his feet, heart pounding, short of breath and dry-mouthed. From his lips spill plumes of white, but even though he pants eagerly for breath he cannot fill his lungs. His right shoulder aches dully and his arm is growing numb. 

A horse falls into the depression at his side, rider struggling with the reins. The animal is spooked and fit to panic. 

It’s William, pale-faced under his dark hair, expression grim. 

“Did you see it?”

“It’s a wolf,” the Huntsman pants, swallowing. “Massive, easy as big as your horse. Gone mad.”

William curses. The horse dances on its hooves, and the boy is forced to let it turn away from Eric, eager to go up the hill. 

“Two of the men are dead,” William says. “I’m taking the horsemen and setting a perimeter. Find the hunters and try to push it to the edge of the forest. The spearmen and archers are there.”

Eric nods and takes off running, wordless for his lack of breath. He finds five of the other hunters and tells him of William’s plot, but the others—four more should still live—are nowhere to be seen. Eric cannot spare the time to go for them, so he sets on his own path, walking noiselessly, listening. 

With the horses leaving the forest to guard the line of trees, the forest’s silences reigns once more. In this quiet he can listen in ways no other men can listen. He moves swiftly, hand relaxed on the handle of his heaviest axe. Keeping close to the ground, shifting from foot to foot and never staying still. He knows this; knows how to hunt a creature, how to walk the woods like a shadow, mind empty of anything but his target, focused, focused. 

Blood on the ground by a tree. He knows the wolf is hurt. He swipes the blood up with his fingers. Warm. It’s close. Wiping the blood against the leg of his trousers, licking his lips, he stands and moves again. 

Suddenly it’s there, a mountain of tangled fur reeking of blood and fury, eyes wild, teeth gleaming. Eric lifts his axe and throws it with the entire weight of his body and strength to propel it. It sinks into the wolf’s shoulder, and the roar is deafening, but it does not stop the beast’s forward momentum. Eric scrambles out of the way, but not fast enough. He slips and it catches his right arm, teeth savaging the skin and biting down to the muscle. Eric cries out, pulls out of one his knives and shoves it into the wolf’s muzzle. 

As soon as the beast releases him he stumbles back, choking on uneven pants, nearly blinded by the intensity of the pain. He can see muscle through his torn skin. Blood runs down his twitching fingers. He realizes he’s crashed to his knees, and tries to get up, but he can’t seem to find his balance. The wolf is a writhing mass of mad rage on the ground. Eric knows he should not linger, but he cannot stand. 

Another of the hunters comes screaming through the bushes and throws another knife at the wolf. The beast growls, stands on shaky legs, and takes off towards the edge of the forest. 

The hunter, a young man of dark blue eyes and fiery red hair, hesitates at the sight of Eric’s arm. 

“Go,” growls the Huntsman, letting himself fall to sit on the ground, curling around his mangled arm. “Finish it, go.”

The hunter nods reluctantly and runs after the wolf. 

Silence falls around Eric like a blanket. He can hear the harshness of his own breaths and the sound of blood dripping to the leaves between his legs. As the flush of hot blood of the hunt begins to come down, he starts to shiver. His arm trembles violently, but he cannot keep it still. 

He startles awake from a pain-induced doze when the horse stops nearby, snorting. William dismounts immediately, horrified. 

“Can you stand, Eric?”

Eric nods dazedly. 

“Did ye kill it?”

“It’s dead,” William confirms, gently easing Eric’s left hand away from his elbow. His face hardens at the sight of the injury.

“I suppose you recognized it by my axe buried in its shoulder?” he asks. 

William arches a brow, “I regret to say by the time he reached us he and your axe had parted company.”

“Pity,” says Eric, eyes falling shut. “T’was a fine axe.”

“I’ll get you a better one,” he thinks he hears William say, but that is the last thing he knows, and then all is quiet. 

The next time he awakens he is on a cot beneath the open sky, and his arm is blessedly numb. He glances down; all from his elbow to his hand is wrapped in snow-white bandages. Transfixed by the lack of pain, he attempts to move his fingers. Red blossoms on the blinding white of his forearm. 

Someone makes a distressed sound, and a physician is on him immediately, changing the bandage. William looms over at his side, and then crouches down, shaking his head. 

“You mustn’t move that arm. You’ve not even been treated yet. Just field aid.”

Eric swallows, squinting at him in the winter sunlight. “How bad?”

“It looks bad,” William admits. “But I’m no physician. We’ll know better once at the castle.”

At this the Huntsman starts, frowning. “The castle? No.”

William gives him a cold look. “No?”

“There’s no need. There are physicians in the town.”

“This hunt was ordered by the Queen,” interrupts William. “It is her order that all those injured are to be treated at the castle by the castles’ own physicians.”

“I do not—“

“Or are you asking me to give you special treatment, Huntsman?” 

Eric’ mouth snaps shut. _Damn him_. He said that loud enough that several people around him must have heard. Any way he tries to get out of this now, he’ll be damned for it. 

“No, Milord,” he grounds out, furious. 

“Good man,” William smiles genially, patting his shoulder. 

Eric grits his teeth and looks stonily straight up to the sky. William takes the hint and makes himself scarce, but all through the trek through the beach to the castle he knows he boy is nearby, watching everyone, offering encouragement. Being, in short, the fine son-of-a-duke he is. William is everything Eric will never be, and Eric knows it. 

The Queen receives them in the front courtyard, calm and gentle, sparing a word and a soothing touch for everyone. Eric hasn’t seen her since spring. A year, just about. She is still so beautiful it takes the breath away from his lungs, pain scratching harshly at his eyes. He turns his head and closes his eyes, hoping he might go unnoticed. 

That is, of course, not the case. 

“Oh, Eric,” She crouches down, mindless of her gown, and doesn’t dare touch his bandaged arm. She looks at the physician. “How bad is it?”

“I do not yet know, Your Majesty,” she says politely. “I must clean the wound first to examine it.”

“It’s his good arm,” she murmurs, but both Eric and the physician can tell she’s not telling the girl to pressure her. She’s just absorbing the catastrophe of it. If the arm is ruined, Eric will lose his living. 

“It’s alright,” he says roughly, catching one of her hands with his left one and squeezing. “It’s one of the risks.”

She looks for a moment like she wants to say something more, but at the last second decides against it. She instead leans forward to press a chaste kiss to his mud-splattered forehead, and with one last squeeze moves away so his cot can be taken into the castle and to the healing rooms. 

Eric isn’t sure what happens during the next few hours, because they give him milk of the poppy and he sleeps. His sleep is, as ever, restless, coming and going in shreds of dizziness and clarity interrupted with stretches of murky darkness. He gets no rest from it, and twice wakes up retching miserably, and finds a physician with a basin ready. 

At some point afternoon becomes night and he thinks Snow White comes to the healing room. Feverishly, he fancies she sits on the edge of his bed and strokes his hair back tenderly. He dreams she sings. 

When morning comes, dizziness and dream are gone. He feels hot and cold at the same time, and he finds his shirt drenched with sweat. He glances down at his arm, wrapped in bandages and secured by what looks like a cast-iron brace to immobilize his wrist. He blinks dazedly at it, trying and failing to lift it. 

He must make a sound of distress, because one of the physicians rushes over, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder to keep him on the bed. 

“Easy,” he says quietly. “The bones are not broken, but the skin is torn. If you move your wrist, you will rip the stitches. It is only for a short while.”

 

Eric lets his head fall heavily back on the pillow. “The arm is saved, then?”

“Oh, yes. The skin however, will scar extensively.”

The Huntsman laughs breathlessly. “What are scars, so long as I can move the arm?”

The physician nods, smiling. “That is a healthy way to look at it.”

Throughout the day he begins to feel better, though the pain from his arm bites at him, making him shift on the bed, keeping him from sleep. He doesn’t want more milk of the poppy; it makes him sick, and he doesn’t rest even if he sleeps. To keep his fever down they take off his shirt and keep a basin of snow-water nearby, and he can change the cloth on his forehead when he feels overheated. 

By afternoon his hair is soaked through and plastered to his heated forehead, and no matter how he shifts he cannot be comfortable. Eric hates being sick, always has. He detests being confined to a bed. He lets the cloth slip over his eyes and sighs gustily. Gods be damned. 

He hears the door open and hushes voices, and then soft kitten-like steps. 

“How are you, Eric?” Snow White’s quiet voice makes his flinch. He reaches up and pulls the cloth away, embarrassed. 

He tries to sit up, but his arm shoots a lightning bolt of pain that makes him grit his teeth. Snow’s hands land on his shoulders and she shushes him, pressing him back to the mattress. She sits on the edge of the bed, where he dreamt she was the night before, and takes the cloth from him to drop it in the basin. 

“They tell me your arm will heal perfectly.”

“Aye, they tell me the same,” he sighs. 

A moment of silence passes between them. 

She dips the cloth, squeezes it and lays it gently on his forehead, fingers light and delicate. A drop of deliciously cold water rolls down his temple. She catches it on a fingertip and presses it instead to his dry bottom lip. Heat rolls down his spine. 

“I’ve missed you,” she murmurs. 

He swallows, nods. “I’ve missed ye too.”

“Won’t you stay longer this time?” she asks, pressing the cloth to his forehead with her fingertips. She wipes a drop of water that falls into the hollow of his eye, and ghosts her fingers over the arch of his brow. Eric feels overheated, and this time it’s not the fever.

“Until my arm heals,” he concedes. “By necessity, since the physician refuses to let me leave.”

Snow blinks and turns to the man. The physician gives her a sour look. 

“He is a wretched patient, Your Majesty. Absolutely wretched.”

“Eric, are you frightening my healers?” the Queen teases, smiling. 

“Only because they will not let me sit up,” he says, and scowls. 

Snow laughs quietly. “You are a terror. It is better for your arm that you stay lying down.”

Her eyes dip briefly to his bare chest, and come back up a different shade; darker, warmer. Her hand is still on the side of his face where it rested after she wiped the water from his eye. And her thumb drags along his unshaven jaw, like fire being struck. 

He parts his lips, breaths in—moves his face away. 

“I will stay as long as they ask it of me,” he says, blankly. “I would not want to mangle their work.”

Snow takes the gesture for what it is (denial) and straightens. “I ordered the hunt and you were wounded in it. The castle will see to your perfect health.”

He turns back to her, expressionless. 

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” he murmurs formally. 

It’s a dismissal, and a cold one, but Snow smiles. “I will see you tomorrow.”

And she does. She comes by every afternoon for the next week as he lays healing, and is there with him when they remove the brace and change the bandages. The stitches have worked and skin knits back together, scarred but healthy. The only night she does not come, William does, carrying with him an object wrapped in a dark cloth. 

Eric uses his left hand to unwrap it carefully, and stares when he realizes it’s a splendid brushed steel-and-Ironwood axe. 

“I told you I’d get you a new one.”

Eric stares at him. “It’s too much.”

William shrugs, “It’s your tool of work, and your weapon. You might as well have a good one.”

The Huntsman sighs, sliding his thumb over the smooth metal of the axe-head, admiring its craftsmanship. He shakes his head slowly, but looks William in the eyes. 

“Thank you.”

The boy grins. Eric doesn’t have the heart to tell him it’s too fine a weapon for a man like him, so he doesn’t. 

The next night, when he gathers his things and prepares to leave, he weights the axe in his hand, noticing its exquisite balance, admiring the way the candlelight glints on the blade. He considers leaving it there. 

When he walks out of the castle and out into the moonlight, the axe is in his belt.


	3. Chapter 3

A mindless task. He swings the axe up in an arc, back and up over his head, joins his hands in its handle, balances his whole weight on the balls of his feet as he arches up with the momentum. Drops weight and strength and ax down onto the log. 

It splits right down the half, neat and clean, each half falling noiselessly to the grass. 

If only everything else in his life were that easy. 

He kicks one of the halves away from himself and picks up another log, positions it, splits it. Another. And another. 

He is building a sweat. His right arm stings, scarred skin pulling tensely. The deep ropes of scar tissue are still tinted new-born pink. He should not be doing this and he doesn’t need the wood. He keeps doing it anyway, because if he stops he’ll have nothing else to do. 

It’s when he has nothing to do that he sits in silence and thinks of that kiss that will never leave him. And thinking of it makes him reproduce it, in his mind, like the thousands shards of a broken mirror, and in its reproduction it multiplies and changes so that he goes from remembrance to imagination. The past kiss then turns into a future one. 

He brings the axe down and it sinks through the log and into the wood below. He lets it there linger a moment, straightening to push sweat-slicked hair away from his forehead. His shoulders and back are aflame with exertion. He’ll regret this in the morning, after the cool breath of night has stiffened his muscles, but he relishes it now. 

He hears the horse tread behind him and turns, blinking in the sunlight. Eric gets very little visitors to his cabin, remote and half-hidden in the woods, and he’s not expecting anyone right now. 

The boy is young and the horse is tall and fine, black as night. Eric knows the boy’s vest. An envoy from the castle. 

“Are you Eric of Unamoro?” he asks. 

Eric hasn’t heard his own last-name in a while; most people call him Huntsman, or Eric. There’s very little doubt as to whether he is, but Eric nods. “Aye, I am. What’s your business, lad?”

“I have a letter for you,” the boy says, and fishes from his purse a crisp envelope, urging the horse forward and closer. Eric takes the envelope, noticing the emblem in the dark blue wax. This comes directly from the Queen. Eric gestures at the boy and goes to his cabin, where he finds a coin and, coming out, flips it at him. The boy catches it with a nod of thanks and pockets it. 

He does not leave. 

Eric arches a brow. 

“I was instructed to wait for your reply, written or voiced.”

The Huntsman scowls. This is William’s work, he knows it. The boy manipulates protocol and courtesy with the same precision he does a bow and arrow. Eric has to read the letter now, and even if he does not reply to whatever is in it, William and Snow White will know that he has read it, and he will not get away with claiming ignorance of their missives, as he’s done before. 

With a grunt, he breaks the wax and opens the letter. 

_Dearest Eric_  
Two months have gone by since last we shared a room. A week from now will be exactly one year since I became Queen, and as surely you know, a celebration is being held. I would not sit where I do now if not for you, and I would not enjoy it lest you join me in the revelries. Will you not come, and be my closest friend as you were then?  
Yours,   
Snow White 

Damnit it all to the deepest pit. He crumbles the letter in his hand. 

“Your reply?”

Eric waves a hand. “Tell Her Majesty the Queen I will take due time to consider it.” 

The boy seems unsatisfied, but he’s been instructed to wait for a reply and he has his reply. He turns the horse around and walks it slowly down the trail and away. 

Eric is unhappily aware of how well known he is in town as Snow White’s erstwhile friend. Eric goes to the town rarely enough, and to the castle not at all, so they speculate that something must have happened between them that banished Eric back into the shadows where he knows he rightfully belongs. They rightfully believe it was his fault. They just assume that Eric was his usual nasty self and Snow White tolerated one bark too many. 

The castle folks are different, because they saw them together and know that Eric left of his own volition and to Snow White’s sadness. Eric has had to put up with several of them hinting he’d be welcome should he choose to return, as if it were anything like their business what he does with his life or where he does it. 

It would not surprise Eric in the least, indeed, that the boy who’s just delivered the missive hoped Eric would react visibly in some way and feed their hopes of his return. As if he didn’t have enough of being the corpse on which the crows of gossip feed on account of Sarah’s death and his drunken antics, now he has to live with people thinking he should run back to Snow White with his tail between his legs and apologize for—for _what_ , exactly? Why do they even think he chose to leave in the first goddamn place?

“Burn the lot of them,” he mutters angrily, shoving the crumpled letter into the pocket of his breeches and yanking the axe up. 

He sleeps that night and well into the morning, and wakes stiff with abused muscles. Walking through the woods to ease the stiffness he runs into a man who requests he helps him hunt down an animal that’s been wrecking havoc amongst his sheep. Eric agrees, glad for the distraction, and spends the entirety of the next week hunting down a pack of small wolves. 

“Fine pelts,” the man says when he is done. Eric agrees and suggests he keeps them, but the shepherd is not interested and has no space besides. He takes the pelts, at the lack of anything better to do with them, thinking that he might get good money for them. 

When he arrives at his cabin, he finds a leather purse hanging from an arrow stuck to his front door. Arching a brow, he yanks the arrow free and unwinds the leather from its shaft. This comes straight from William, he can tell. The purse contains four gold coins and a fold of crisp white paper. Astonished and quickly growing offended, he opens it angrily. 

_Get a new shirt, animal. My treat._

“Shove it,” he says viciously, and throws the purse and its contents away carelessly before slamming his front door closed. 

He remembers now, though, that the celebration is to be the following day. A year since the coronation. Eric hasn’t seen Snow White in two months. Even if he did not want to see her—and he does, desperately—she sent him a personal invitation from her own hand a week prior to the event. She’s exhausted all avenues of correct address. He cannot deny her now. 

It’s spring, and though the water of the river is still a tad too cold, he bathes in it. Absently, as he rubs soap onto his hair with his left hand, he turns his right forearm in the sunlight and examines the long ropes of scars, new-born pink. He was lucky to keep the arm. He has Snow White to thank for that. 

He leaves the purse where it lays on the ground, ignoring the glint of sunlight on gold. 

On an impulse, he takes the wolf pelts. Two of them are white, and one a beautiful grey, the rest dark. He takes them to the coat-maker and asks him to do with them a fine fur cloak. It’s an extravagance, and the man looks at him oddly until he clarifies it is for a lady. As soon as the coat-maker gets that brightness of the eye that suggests he is about to comment on Eric’s lady, the Huntsman takes his leave. 

His rudely speedy getaway doesn’t keep him from hearing that man assure him the cloak will be fit for a Queen. 

And it is, by the time it is done. White as clouds and lined inside with whisper-soft silk, it is a garment any Queen would pay to have. For all its splendor it is simple and sober enough; as he knows Snow White will prefer a simple cloak than a richly embroidered one. She dislikes excessiveness. 

The town clothes itself in joy for the celebration. Banners and music and happiness may be found at every corner. The streets are packed with travelers coming from other places to join in the revelry, and Eric find himself recoiling form the crowds, wanting nothing more than to retire back to his quiet cabin lost on the shadow of the looming trees. 

But he has the cloak, and he reasons it would make no sense to return home with it. He knows Snow White is walking around the streets speaking to whomever wishes to speak to her, but he’s reluctant to try to find her since it would mean navigating the crowd. He decides instead to stay in a corner, visible enough, sipping from a cup of cold lemon water. It’s hard enough to miss him, tall as he is, and with a package wrapped in oilcloth and the sunlight wrenching gold-and-copper glints form his hair, he knows he catches the eye. 

Sure enough, when the Queen’s group finally reached the street, her eyes go to him immediately. She smiles, wide and sweet, and starts to move towards him. Eric drains the last of his lemon water and sits the cup down on a windowsill, moving to meet her. 

“You came,” she says as soon as they are close enough to hear one another, hand darting out to find his. He squeezes her fingers, smiling. 

“Aye, I could not miss it.”

She looks breathtakingly beautiful in a blue gown and black cloak, her hair braided up and long silvery earrings dangling like wind-chimes form her ears. All in her is delicate and feminine. Eric feels like a behemoth next to her, not only unworthy but also unwieldy, now. 

“I like your shirt,” William says at her shoulder. Eric tosses him a look, and the boy grins impishly. “Is that for someone, or are you just carrying it around?”

Feeling distinctly clumsy, Eric manipulates the package and presents it to Snow White. 

“Oh, Eric, you did not have to,” she murmurs, but politely tugs at the string and unwraps the oilcloth. Her mouth falls open slightly when she realizes what it is, and she has to step back to grasp it and unfold it, a long cloak of splendid white wolf pelt lined in blue-green silk, with a silver clasp at the shoulder. 

It’s only now that Eric realized how heavy it probably is. Balling the oilcloth, he shrugs. 

“Feel no obligation to wear it if it displease you,” he says. 

“It’s gorgeous,” she counters, gathering it in her arms, eyes bright. “Did you hunt these wolves yourself?”

“Aye,” he says, and then blinks. “Not for the cloak, though.”

She seems relieved by the fact the animals didn’t die on her account, and with an economic gesture she unclasps the cloak she is wearing and flicks it off her shoulders. William takes it and hands it to one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, blue eyes warm. Snow White settles the fur cloak around her shoulders and clasps it. In it she looks magnificent. 

Eric smiles. 

“Perfect length too,” comments William. 

The Huntsman scoffs. That damned coat-maker. 

Snow White’s hand is back in his, and she is pulling at his arm so he will lean close. Eric indulges her, leaning down, and is shocked speechless when she presses a soft kiss to his cheek. He straightened again, eyes darting around, but of course everyone has seen them—they are right in the middle of the goddamned street and she is the Queen. What is she thinking, kissing him in public? 

He tries to step back, but the crowd has pressed close about them and he has nowhere to go unless he starts elbowing people. He would, were it not for the fact it’ll get him a frown from Snow White, and he really does not want to make her frown on this day. 

“It is lovely, Eric, thank you. I’m sorry I do not have a gift for you.”

“I do not need one,” Eric says gruffly. He realizes he’s still holding her hand. He should let go, but he does not. It’s like his hand has grown a mind of its own and refuses to obey him. She does not seem to mind in the last, and William and the ladies-in-waiting are grinning, but Eric cannot bring himself to enjoy it. 

It’s torture. To be holding her hand and witnessing her joy and find himself incapable of sharing it. They are in the street, in plain view of all who care to look and oh, they are looking. 

“Will you dine with us?” she asks, cheeks tainted pink form happiness. Eric has to appeal to all of his resolve to keep from bending down and crushing his mouth to hers. How sweet it would be, to kiss her again. He would do it differently this time. Pull her forward and into his own body, cradle her head in his hand and keep her close to him with his other arm—

He blinks to disperse the fantasy, and hesitates. 

“The castle is having a feast for noblemen and townfolk alike,” William says, and damnit, Eric knows what he’s going to say next. “It would be out honor if you joined us.” And he smiles. 

The little _snake_. He’s made it a matter of protocol again, wielding it against Eric as if it were a blade. Eric doesn’t have the words to counterattack, so he grits his jaw and nods. 

Still, the truth is that holding onto the grudge with Snow White at Eric’ side smiling and laughing ad so full of life is impossible. The Queen spares a moment for everybody, speaking to children and elder alike and caring nothing for their status. If there is something Snow White has in spades, it is kindness. 

Eric manages to shuffle himself out of the way and walk instead at her back next to William. He waits until the Queen is occupied speaking to children to turn to the Duke’s son and frown at him. 

“Why do you do this?”

William blinks. “Why do I do what?”

“Drag me out of the forest and into— _this_.”

“I wouldn’t do it if you did not force my hand by disappearing for months at a time.”

“What right have you to interfere, or judge me on the particulars of my life?”

William gives him a cold look. “Are we not friends, Eric?” 

Taken aback, Eric takes moment to gather his thoughts. 

“We are.”

“Then I have a right to interfere if I believe your actions are in your own detriment, do I not? Would you not stop me from being an idiot if you could, if you thought I was hurting myself—and _her_ , by being so? And I,” he adds viciously when Eric opens his mouth. “do not judge you on _anything_. Except your clothes.”

Eric drags a hand down his face. 

The day thus passes slowly, like honey dragging laboriously down the bark of a tree. Eric trails behind Snow White until such a time as he can no longer pretend to be social, and when his will breaks he takes his leave without word, hoping against hope to be able to steal away in the crowd, silent and unnoticed. 

He happens then upon one of the royals that have come for the occasion. He sits on his tall horse in the corner, regal and handsome in his velvet clothes and cloak, and is speaking earnestly to the crowd, in gentle heartfelt words, of how well he would like to marry the Queen. 

Eric stares at him, muted by shock. As time wearies on and the words continue shock turns, slowly, into disbelief. 

“He really likes the sound of his voice,” a man at Eric’s right says, amused. “Pompous little brat.”

William shoves his way through the crowd until he reached Eric’ side, and listens for a moment. Then he smiles, wide and bright. 

“Why, he has a lot of feelings, this lad. And feels the need to speak of them. Extensively.” 

“Swift death save me from Kings and their _speeches_ ,” mutters Eric. 

“He uses a lot of very flowery words,” comments William, eyes bright with mirth. “I feel like I learn vocabulary just by standing here.”

Eric turns a stony gaze on him, and gestures to the pompous royal brat with a vague gesture of his right hand. “You intend to allow this?” 

William arches a brow. “I allow it? _I_ allow it? It’s not me he means to marry. I will be allowing nothing. If you have complains, take them to out fair Queen, since it’s her hand he means to hold.” 

Eric grunts and shoulders away through the crowd and onto the street, meaning to remove himself back to the quietness of his cabin, but William catches up to him, gripping his left arm and whirling him around. 

“What is _this_ , then?” he hisses, pale-faced with mounting fury. “Turning tail again like a wounded pup?”

Eric shoves him away, himself growing heated. “What else would you have me do? Shall I go to her and beg her to wed me instead? I, a penniless Huntsman with nothing to my name?”

“It’s not your name she cares for, or your pennies,” spits William. 

“That arrogant little bastard,” says Eric, gesturing at the crowd where the foreign King is still, Gods burn him, speaking. “Has nothing to do around our Queen. I would trust you to know what she needs and what is best for her.”

“I have my opinions, but no one ever seems to listen to them, not her and _certainly_ not you.”

“What opinions might you have about _my choices?_ ” Eric asks furiously. 

“What right have you to question her options if you will not present yourself as one?” demands William, yanking his gloves off in jerky, angry movements. “What am I to counsel her, when she needs a husband and you are gone for months at a time, and when you are here you do not even speak to her?”

“I am not an option, you blithering fool.”

“Oh, aye, you think so, then do not come to me with rage when she weds another man! If the sheep should dance in front of the wolf, I’ll not have it then come crying to me about the wolf biting her!”

“And you think that, if she should marry, this man would be the _right one?_ ” Eric fists a hand in William’s shoulder and turns him around to the King, but the boy shoved him away, breathing harshly. 

 

“Since when do you listen to what _I think?_ ” he pauses a moment, eyes hardening, and Eric has no time to brace himself for what comes next. “I shouldn’t think you’d trouble yourself with my thoughts, since you’ve painted yourself as a pathetic coward in my eyes already.”

Eric fists his hands in William’s coat and crushes him against the wall, ever vein burning with fury. 

“Watch your tongue,” he growls. “Before you have it ripped out of your mouth.”

For all of his precarious position and his awareness of how dangerous a foul-mooded Eric can be, William’s eyes are burning, and he opens his mouth. This day will end in blood. 

Then someone is yanking Eric away from the boy. The guards wrench him away and then release him, raising their hands in a gesture of peace. They won’t hurt him. Of course they won’t hurt him—they would do nothing to displease Snow White, and they think him her pet!

Rage whites out his vision. 

He hadn’t thought he had any pride left, but lo. Here it is. 

“That is enough,” the captain of the guard says quietly. “You are both the Queen’s men. Behave like it. That you fight each other thus is unsightly.”

Eric stares at him, breath catching painfully in his breast, turned from thorax to cage with anger. He is no one’s man. He is his own damn man, and no matter who holds his heart his fate is still his own. 

“Burn the both you,” he growls, and without a single other word, he turns around and leaves the town. 

Storms to his cabin, gather his things, and leaves immediately. He doesn’t know when he’ll feel like returning, but it’s just as well. Snow White doesn’t need him; she’s got William and the council and the army to serve and protect her. Suitors left and right to request she wed them. 

Of him he has the cloak. And of her, he has the kiss. 

It’ll have to be _enough._


	4. Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then, abruptly, he stands. 
> 
> “Very well,” he says briskly, grinning. “I will see you tomorrow, then!”
> 
> “That is all?” Eric frowns in confusion. “You are leaving?”
> 
> “Well I expected to have to fight you on this, but, thank heavens, you’ve come to your senses, and I am reluctant to test my luck by staying and giving you a chance to back out. So yes. I am leaving.”
> 
> And, without another word, he carries himself out the door, up the horse, and down the trail. Erik blinks at the open door, thinking either one of them is mad, and he can’t at this point quite pick which one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha it turns out I forgot to update this story in AO3 eeven as I kept posting it on tumblr so... doing that. Now.

He’s forgotten he has an iron ring on a post to tie a horse to. He never used to have a horse before. Sarah had one—a grey mare, he remembers. Docile and sweet. It was gone when he came back, just as she was. 

He gives the animal enough rope it can pretty much go anywhere, and shoves open the door to his cabin. He doesn’t bother looking around much. A thick layer of earth and dust has accumulated on top of table. He only sees it because it comes up in a cloud when he drops his bag onto it. He blows though his mouth, watching the motes of dust swirl in a beam of sunlight so thick it’s nearly a plank. 

The shutter in the window is broken and fallen on its bottom hinge. Eric snorts. 

He might as well grab his bedroll and live in the god-damned woods. He kicks a stool out of the way and shoves the shutters all the way open with some effort. When the sunlight is streaming unobstructed inside the cabin, he does get a look. Its state is no great surprise; it’s been abandoned for a year and a half, and it shows. 

Shrugging off his coat, he sits on the edge of his bed and lets himself flop back, sighing. It’s good to finally stop. He’s been moving around so much, working so hard. 

He must fall asleep, because he snaps awake much later, when the sun begins to fall down. The broken shutter is swaying in the wind and hitting the window pane. Eric gets up and, opening the window, lifts it entirely off its one remaining hinge. The top one is broken. He’ll have to buy a new one. But it can wait, for a couple of hours at least. 

As he turns around to leave the shutter on the table he catches a glimpse of something on top of the hearth. Frowning, he walks over and removes it. It’s a smooth blue stone, rounded and glossy, perfectly polished. He turns it on his fingers, arching a brow. It’s just a stone. He’s never seen it before; certainly it wasn’t there when he left. 

He glances at the place where it had rested, and to his surprise finds there a folded piece of paper. He reaches out and picks it up, and dust falls from its surface. It’s been there a while, then. That someone has been into his cabin and left this does not alarm him; obviously the place is not build to resist assault and it’s common enough that wonderers or even hunters spend the night in abandoned places in the woods to shelter themselves. Eric would not have been surprised to find his cabin had been used; the leaving behind of a present and a message, however, _is_ odd. 

He knows immediately who it was that left it when he unfolds it. He recognizes the handwriting. 

_It’s been four months and a week since last I saw you. I thought I would come visit you for a change, but again, you are gone. I miss you. Please come back to me.  
Yours, _

_Snow White_

Eric takes a longer look around the cabin. Snow White, Queen of Tabor, came into this miserable little cabin. Well, he figures it can’t have been any worse than the dungeon she spent a good portion of her life in. But still—the thought is, somehow, unsettling. 

Shaking his head, he folds the letter and puts it in his shirt pocket, and goes about the house setting some things to rights before he turns in to sleep. 

In the morning, he takes the hinge to the ironwork and is surprised when blacksmith stares at him as though he’s returned from amongst the dead. 

“I’ll be damned,” he mutters. “I thought you lying dead somewhere, the feast of maggots.”

Eric arches a brow, “Thank ye. Verra kind of ye.” 

“How’s for that accent? Been back home, have you?” 

“I passed through,” admits Eric, and drops the hinge on the man’s table. “I’ll need ye to fix that.” 

“This is what happens when you leave for two years,” scowls the blacksmith, turning the hinge in his worked-roughened hands. 

“It was a year and a half,” corrects Eric mildly. “And I’ll thank ye not to tell me my business, lest you hope I’ll tell ye to work iron.” 

“You’ve got more a tongue on you that you ever did before,” grunts the man, giving Eric a narrow look. “I’d have never expected attitude from the likes of you.”

“The likes of me have little patience, old man. Can ye fix the hinge or no?” 

“It’s just a hinge!” hissed the man. 

“Well then _just fix it_ ,” growls Eric. 

The man throws him a fierce scowl and leaves, storming to the back of the shop to work on the hinge. Eric shakes his head, somewhat disbelieving. Old blacksmith Turner has always had a mouth to him, of course, but he normally doesn’t bother with Eric at all, choosing t communicate with grunts and a healthy dose of derision. Eric, who’s been dealing with derision for a long time and has a lot of practice with it, was perfectly content with their usual methods of communications, so the new turn is a little surprising. 

He lets the blacksmith’s wife know that he’ll return shortly, and decides to take a turn around town, see if anything has changed in his absence. Not much has, he finds; the town seems cleaner, with entire streets covered with gravel to avoid mud in the rainy season. This is a vast improvement, he notices immediately, because with the dirt of the streets confined beneath the gravel, the town is much cleaner, with freshly painted walls and glossy crystal windows. 

It looks less like a small little town and more like the city it is supposed to be, the closest city to the Castle. The heart of Tabor, it should be; and in a few years, if it keeps on in this fashion, it _will_ be. 

There is a strange air to it, too. More lively, full of hope. Joyful. 

Tabor seems a new country entirely. He has heard of Snow White and her council traveling the lands, both in an effort to ascertain the present condition of the nation and to let the people beyond the closest cities and fields to get a glimpse of her lovely face, and know of her kindness. The procession passed through Eric’ hometown and there remained for about a week, several months prior, but by then Eric had not intended to visit it. They did not come close to crossing paths. Eric is not sure he would have been of a mind to enjoy it, then. 

Tabor has been speedily improving in the last few months, anyone can see that. But—ah. There is something else. 

Of course. 

Snow White turns one-and-twenty this year. 

Three years, then, thinks Eric. Three years since she turned of age and escaped Ravenna. A handful of days later, Eric was dispatched to find her and bring the Queen her heart. A little less than three years since he first laid eyes on the small, slender little girl. 

_Little girl no longer_ , he thinks, blinking in the springtime sunlight, thinking of the touché of her lips upon his, soft and plaint and sweet. 

“Folly,” he sighs, and rubs a hand down his face. “Utter folly.”

He returns to the blacksmith to find his hinge is once again in top condition, so after paying, he retrieves his horse and returns to his cabin. The rest of the day he spends fixing the cabin, cleaning it, and then cleaning the area around it. Some tree limbs have grown long and criss-cross atop its roof; while picturesque, they prove perilous. A strong wind might knock one down into the cabin. Eric has no particular love for the place, but he isn’t keen on waking one night impaled by an errant branch. 

The woods he cuts he piles and bares of leaves, to better chop it the following day. In springtime his cabin is warm, but he can still sell the wood to those who require roaring fires all year round, like the tavern and boarding house or the blacksmith’s shop. 

This is life as it used to be—before. Before Sarah. Before he lived in the bottom of a tankard. Before, most importantly, Snow White. 

It was, Eric realizes now, a very quiet and peaceful life. Hew minded his business. He and Sarah lived isolated and wrapped in each other, easily, happily. Sarah never asked for much; she wanted Eric to come home, and for him to be safe. She didn’t want of hoped for any fancy things, not that Eric would have been able to afford them or, to be perfectly honest, think of them. 

They aren’t easy to compare, Sarah and Snow White. 

Sarah had been the daughter of a shepherd. Short and thin, solidly built by years of hunger and hard work, skin tanned and hair made light by the sun, and eyes the color of honey and good whiskey. Nothing about Sarah had been frail. While beautiful, she had been very strong, brought up to survive a life as harsh as his own. Her hands had been rough-skinned and square-palmed. 

Snow White, daughter of a king, born to privilege, locked away by the crime implied in her beauty. Pale as bone, hair as black as night, eyes blue-green, lips like fresh spilled blood. All of her was delicate and slender, elegant, graceful like the movement of a cat. Fine-boned, long-fingered hands and the smell of roses in bloom. 

Nothing alike, but in one thing; the will to live, to fight, to do that which was right. To never give up. 

And.

“Both stubborn as goats,” he adds to himself, palming the stone Snow White had used to pin the note to his hearth. 

He lets the day blur into one another, splitting wood, enjoying the relief of hunting only to put food on his own table. He has frugal needs, and rarely spends money these days, so he’s saved up quite a lot of it. Not enough, he knows, to retire in peace, but certainly it will keep him comfortable for several months. 

Perhaps one month less, he supposes, if he buys new clothes. Which he urgently needs to. Reluctantly, he takes himself and his purse to the town—city now, to be fair—and buys the absolute necessities. 

When she is done fitting the shirt to him, Eric hesitates. He knows, of course, that he might not be welcomed. He’s been gone for over a year, after all. But Snow White did go to his cabin, and left the note. It has sat there for a while, but still—there it sat. Eric has left, time and time again, she always she has sought him out, or asked him to return. Perhaps, at last, it’s time he acts like the grown man he is. 

“I need a doublet,” he manages to make himself say. 

The woman’s eyes light up. “Velvet,” she says immediately. “A handsome velvet doublet for the celebration.”

Eric shifts uncomfortably in place. “Indeed. I have little money to spare—“

“I’ll give it for free, for God’s sake. Just stay still and let me fit it!”

Eric opens his mouth to complain, but the little girl sitting atop the long working table tilts her hair, a cascade of golden hair tumbling over her small shoulders, and blinks at him. Her child-like beauty is arresting. Eric is truck speechless by the sudden realization that a little girl of such beauty would never have been allowed out of doors, had Ravenna been at the throne. She was sure to be taken and murdered. 

“Blue velvet,” she says, giggling. “Like his eyes.” 

So Eric is powerless to stop the woman as she takes a midnight-blue velvet doublet and fits it to him it sits like a glove atop of stark white shirt. It is simple enough, straightforward. It has very little adornments, which Eric appreciates immensely, because he dislikes such gaudy things. The only allowances are the round, smooth silver buttons for the front. It has no collar, for which Eric is grateful, for he fears he would feel choked with one. 

What he ends up with a garment that fits like a second skin, tailored exactly for him, and the woman throws in black breeches too because she insists that cannot go with the brown ones he bought earlier. 

No amount of arguing can get her to accept money for the doublet. Eric contents himself with leaving the little girl a stab of three silver coins; not enough to cover the doublet, of course, but certainly enough to buy her a pretty dress, or something she might like. 

Rather unsurprisingly, when he returns to his cabin he finds a horse tied to it and, just as he suspects upon spotting it, carries the code of arms of the Duke. He pushes the door open and glances at William, lounging in a chair with his legs stretched out in front of him. 

“Make yerself at home,” he says amiably, dumping the pack of clothes and other things on his bed. 

“Eric, you never write, you never visit,” William shakes his head. “I begin to think that you—did you shave?”

Eric frowns. “I admit I did not expect that sentence to end in that.”

“I can’t recall ever seeing you clean-faced.” 

“Well now you know what my jaw looks like,” says Eric, pulling out another chair and sitting. “If that was any concern of yours, for a reason I cannot begin to fathom.”

“Shaved, cleaned up, new shirt. Why Huntsman, you look like a different man entirely.”

“Thank you, I suppose?” 

William sits up, tilting his head minutely, eyes wide. “Eric, are you coming to the celebration?”

Eric nods slowly, eyeing him with certain apprehension. If William asks him to desist, he will of course obey—William is in the Council now, and knows Snow White the best besides. If she does not want Eric there, William will know, and will not shy from telling the Huntsman. But he hopes he does not, for—he misses Snow White. Desperately. 

But the boy—no longer a boy, in fact, but rather a young man, now—stays perfectly still for a long moment, staring at Eric. 

Then, abruptly, he stands. 

“Very well,” he says briskly, grinning. “I will see you tomorrow, then!”

“That is all?” Eric frowns in confusion. “You are leaving?”

“Well I expected to have to fight you on this, but, thank heavens, you’ve come to your senses, and I am reluctant to test my luck by staying and giving you a chance to back out. So yes. I am leaving.”

And, without another word, he carries himself out the door, up the horse, and down the trail. Erik blinks at the open door, thinking either one of them is mad, and he can’t at this point quite pick which one. 

The next morning he takes a moment to bathe in the river and shave again before dressing and going to the castle. There is a stream of travelers heading up the beach, many of them noblemen and ladies invited to share a meal with the Queen. The celebration is to be a day-long affair, and everyone is to be welcomed at the castle, so Eric thinks nothing of it when the guards salute him. He figures some of them must remember him from the battle against Ravenna three years prior. 

When he dismounts and a stable boy offers to take his horse to the royal stables, though, Eric starts thinking something might be just slightly off kilter. He might look very different clean, shaved and well-dressed, but certainly he can’t look like a Lord. You might as well call a fish a bird. 

“I am no nobleman,” he says, frowning. “The yard will do.” 

The stable boy purses his lips. “Orders, Huntsman.”

Ah. So the boy does know who he is. 

Eric inhales and exhales slowly. “Orders, I take it, from the Duke’s son?”

A nod. 

“And you are, I take it, to retain my horse until he gives the order to let me have it?”

Another nod. That _little snake_.

Eric drags a hand down his face. 

“All right. Take it, then. Thank ye.”

Erik stalks into the castle, intent on finding William and having some words with him, but he’s soon forced to contain his temper. The castle is packed full of people. Walking is a task demanding of patience and politeness, two things Eric of Unamoro is not well-known for, but he makes an effort. It won’t do to be a rude animal in Snow White’s birthday, not when he already missed the two before by being a negligent brute. 

So he takes a deep breath, and strains for patience. He stands a head, and sometimes a head and shoulders, above much of the crowd, so he’s not surprised to find himself spotted quickly. One of the guards wades the crowd towards him and gestures for the Huntsman to follow. At a lack of anything else to do, and with no solid reason to decline, Eric does. The guard leads him to one of the arches in the wall, unlocks the door, and ushers him into a low, dark corridor. 

Eric is immediately on alert. 

“What’s this then?” he asks, low, glaring at the guard, who seems both at once intimidated and bewildered by the look. 

“Lord William ordered for you to be shown into the inner castle when you arrived.”

The inner castle—and the court, of course. 

Eric gestured for the guard to step ahead of him and lead the way, still suspicious despite himself. He could not shake the feeling he had entered where he did not belong, and that he was pushing his luck by wandering this secret, forbidden corridors. He could argue he had been invited, but then that letter had been sitting there for a while, and it was perfectly possible the Queen had changed her mind. Or, more correctly, arrived to her senses at last, and had seen the sense of keeping him away from her court. 

The mere though arced like pain through his chest. He swallowed against it, shaking his head slowly to clear it as he dragged his hands down the front of his doublet. Surely if nothing else, at least today he looked the part. 

They arrived at last at the other end of the corridor, and this door opened to the inner gardens. The guard inclined his head politely when Eric went past him, and without another word he slipped back into the darkness of the stone walls and shut the door firmly behind himself, leaving Eric alone in the garden. 

For a split-second of blinding white terror, he thought himself trapped and defenseless. It took still a moment to claw his way back to calm. He had William’s axe in his belt, and his sharp hunting knives at his hip. He might be alone, and he might be trapped, but defenseless—never that. Only in the tails of that thought did come the realization that this was Snow White’s home. Surely she, if no longer interested in his personal company, would still not wish him ill. 

Or, perhaps, she’d still welcome him as she had all times before. Gladly. 

“He that lives upon hope has a slim diet,” he tells himself, grim, and starts walking in the direction of the voices he can hear. 

In all inner castle gardens one always has one particularly large field, open and well-cared for, with short grass and firm dirt to allow navigation and several benches where one can sit. Eric, used to the wilderness and ferocity of forests, has always found this spot particularly disagreeable and fake, but he has to admit that what has been done to it today is pleasing to the eye. 

Three long tables have been set up upon low platforms, forming a U shape around what appears to be destined to be a sort of dance floor. The one in the highest platform is, of course, the royal table. Unsurprisingly, Snow White is not sitting to it. Admittedly very few people have taken their seats, many more choosing instead to walk around and mingle with their acquaintances, a normal enough practice in a festivity. 

This is not good news. Eric will have to mingle, himself, in search of the Queen or William, and by God, if there is one thing Eric hates more than dressing up fancy and playing polite, it’s taking up conversation with people he doesn’t even know and trying to sound smart while at it. Damn it. 

He’s trying to make his ay unnoticed, skirting the fringes of groups, when he hear one voice he most definitely remembers and dislikes. He turns around, frowning, and sees that, indeed; the little King is back, and he still has a lot of things he apparently needs to say in eloquent and flowery manners. 

“Plague upon this house,” he mutters, cross. 

The girl standing, by luck, at his side, startles. She blinks at him, and then turns her green eyes back on the King. 

“He hopes the Queen will fold and marry him,” she says, sounding deeply bored with the whole matter. “As if she would care for such a tasteless character.” 

“I know nothing of his character, but his tongue sure is long.”

“Long tongues often mean great egos,” says the girl. Then, unexpectedly, she turned to face him directly, eyes calm and clear. “The shortest tongues, on the other hand, are nearly always impossible to understand.” 

They stare at each other for a long moment. Finally, overcome by the idea that he’s being told something he’s not quite intelligent enough to decipher—unless it’s what he’s thinking of, which it better not be, because he’s never even seen this insolent noble-girl before—he bows his head slowly. 

It seems, for once, to be the right answer, because she bows in turn, elegant and graceful as a doe, and turns away again. Eric considers asking her for the Queen, and immediately puts that thought out of his mind. She seems informed enough, as it is. 

He turns, instead, to go, and catches a glimpse of William’s face in a group of young men closest to the edge of the labyrinth. Ah. Well, that is better. 

He makes his way there as quickly as he can while still bowing and nodding to whoever bows and nods to him first, and really this is ridiculous. He’s just a Huntsman, for God’s sake. Why the hell are people even nodding at him? It must be the doublet. Or the axe. One of those. 

“Huntsman!” William grins at him, wide and genuine, when he at last approaches. “How good of you to come. Allow me to introduce,” and then follows a string of names and titles, and there’s a lot of bowing and nodding. Just what Eric loves. He makes an effort to rein in his temper, gather his patience, and remember all the names, if not the titles. The young noble-men in this group, about half a dozen, seem somewhat hesitant about Eric, as much as he is of them. But William sails right through any stiffness or discomfort, making conversation that is well in Eric’ reach, drawing them all in with his words and open gestures. 

Truly a master of conversation, he soon has them all in fine and pleasant terms, putting even boorish, distant Eric at ease by introducing the subject of the rebirthing forests and the growing game for hunting parties. One of the noblemen, Ferdinand Marsington—Eric is stunned that he even remembers the name—shows special interest in hunting, and with him Eric can have a comfortable conversation, which at last more or less inevitably ends in him offering to join a hunting party with Ferdinand and his friends. Everyone seems pleased by this suggestion, William most of all. 

Eric takes advantage of a turn in the conversation to draw William aside. 

“What are ye doing?” he demands, frowning. 

“Me?” William affects innocence. “That was all you.”

Eric resists the urge to drag his hand down his face, all too aware of what a vulgar gesture it is. 

“Will you kindly release my horse to my custody?”

William smiled, “The celebration has just started. Don’t tell me you’re an old man that must nap after noon.”

Eric pauses for a moment. “It’s noon yet. We haven’t eaten.” 

“That is an _excellent_ point,” William slaps him companionably on the shoulder. “You’re absolutely welcome to stay and join us. Why, I _insist_.” 

“I’m certain you do,” says Eric dryly. 

“Oh look,” William shoves at his shoulder to get him to turn to the side. “The ladies are back.”

And with them is Snow White, laughing lightly at a friend’s words as they walk out of the labyrinth. Eric can’t help but stare, because she is wearing a long, stunning gown the color of her eyes and made of some easily flowing fabric, snug against her slender torso and wide and flowing around her hips. 

She’s grown, by God. No longer a beautiful child, she is now instead a breathtaking lady, long dark hair braided down her shoulder, skin pale as snow. 

“I like the doublet, by the way,” William says lightly, drawing Eric’ attention back to him. “You almost look civilized.”

“Have I ever told you I dislike you intensely?”

“Only every time we meet. But I know you lie.” 

“Eric!” Snow White is at their side suddenly, her hand falling easily on Eric’ right arm. Her smile is blinding. “You came! Oh, I’m so glad you could make it!”

“Aye, of course,” manages Eric, somewhat off-balance by the open happiness in Snow’s face, and rather conveniently forgetting he missed the other two birthdays, so there’s no ‘of course’ to any of this. “Ye look—lovely.”

“Thank you,” the Queen inclines her head gracefully. “You yourself look very well.”

“He even shaved,” nodded William. “You can tell he has made an effort.” 

“William!” Snow White laughs lightly, but gives her old friend a look. “Do not hassle him. I will have you know,” she adds, stage-whisper like, to Eric. “That in the last few weeks he has taken to rarely shaving, himself.” 

Eric arches his brow, mocking, and studies the younger man. “Why, I didna know ye had facial hair already.”

William huffs a laugh. “What can I say? I am turning into a man.” 

Eric feels a genuine smile spread on his own lips. “Your friend,” he says to Snow White, leaning down slightly as if in confidence. “has kidnapped my horse.” 

Snow White gasps dramatically. “Scandalous!”

The Duke’s son lifts a forestalling hand, tilting his head. “I have only temporarily removed it.” 

“Next you’ll say stealing is borrowing,” laughs the Queen. 

“Semantics _is_ the key to everything.”

Eric realized abruptly that Snow White’s fingers have wrapped around his arm, so the fingertips rest lightly upon the inside of his elbow. The polite thing to do is bend his arm to offer her the support she’s so subtly suggesting she needs or wants. So he reflexively does. And this is how he ends up with the Queen on his arm. 

“Do you have urgent need of your abducted horse, Eric?” she asks, smiling at him. 

The Huntsman finds himself at a lack of words suddenly, blinded by the smile, on the one hand, and on the other torn because he should, by all rights, leave now. He has seen her. She is well. It ought to be enough for him. It’s not. 

“No,” he settles on finally, giving in. “Not urgent at all.”

Snow White’s face lights up, if possible, even more. “You will stay for the meal, then? It has been so long since we last sat and talked. Surely you have much to tell me of your journey. Did you go home? Your accent is deeper again. It is such a lovely place, Eric. We were just there a few months past.”

“Aye, I heard,” he nods. “I had moved on by then.”

“You were moving fast,” says William, smile sharp. Eric glares at him. Snow white diffuses the tension by simply pulling Eric away towards the table, arching a brow at William. The young man rolls his eyes, but moves along, again descending with enviable aplomb to easy conversation. Eric wishes he had that sort of dominion over words and attitudes. He feels like a bear where he should be a fox. 

A servant then comes to speak quietly to Snow White, and she nods at him, giving permission. The servant then proceeds to politely inform the guests that the meal will be served now, if they care to take their seats. 

Snow White starts towards the royal table, and Eric resolves to escort her to it and then find himself a quiet spot somewhere to eat. He’s not sure he was counted for one of the other tables. He supposed he could ask a servant, or perhaps one of them will simply take pity on him and guide him without making him ask. Everyone else seems to know exactly where they are meant to sit. 

He holds Snow White’s hand when she sits, and then attempts to excuse himself, but she holds fast to his fingers. He leans in, expecting she needs a private word with him before the meal, resting his hand on the back of her tall chair. 

But she says nothing. She simply holds his hand and flicks her eyes down to the chair at her left, as yet unoccupied. 

“Yes?” he encourages, rather bewildered at her unexpected shyness. 

William, sitting at her right, rolls his eyes and gives him a look. “That’s your chair. Sit down.”

The Queen turns to her friend, frowning. They appear to have some sort of silent conversation transmitted by looks and the pursing of lips, in some odd language learnt in court or created by the two of them exclusively, and meanwhile Eric stands paralyzed at her side, her hand still holding his. 

He realizes they’re attracting stares, which is hardly surprising considering the Queen is holding his hand and he’s hunched over her chair like an overgrown bear cub, and just about as graceless. He scans his eyes quickly over the other tables where people are taking their seats, busy in their own conversations. Only a handful of them have even noticed what is happening at the royal table.

One of them, however, is the young lady of green eyes he spoke to earlier. Not only is she staring right at him, but as soon as his eyes land on her she arches a haughty eyebrow, disapproving. Her eyes flick tellingly to the seat he apparently should be occupying. Then her other brow joins the arched one. 

Eric grits his teeth and, gracelessly, he lowers himself to the chair. At a loss for the correct protocol, he carefully lets the Queen’s hand rest on the table, and then tries to settle comfortably into his seat. The Huntsman knows his knowledge of protocol is obviously poor, but even as brute as he can tell that the left of the Queen is a privileged spot. The right for the Queen’s closest advisor, the left for her closest friend. Obviously William cannot occupy both, but—damnit. He should have left when he had the chance. He’s too much in evidence now, sticking up like a sore thumb amongst all this noble blood. 

And then Snow White turns to him, and she starts speaking, and—the discomfort starts bleeding away. It is like old times. They can speak, in easy terms and warmth, as they did when she was nothing but a lost girl and he nothing but a lost and broken man. They might as well be in the Dark Forest, in nothing but mud-splattered clothes, alone. 

Snow encourages him to speak of his journey, comparing it with the things she learned in her own. She goes on extensively about how much she loved the beauty of his hometown, picturesque and small, and then laughs when he shows embarrassment as the mention of those who still remembered him from his childhood. 

“I was a restless child,” he shrugs. “Always causing trouble and running from home for days at a time. I drove my mother mad with concern.”

“I too used to do things that I should not,” says Snow White, smiling. “I used to leave for hours and hide and look for things in the mud. And I would always drag William with me, and because he was older, and a boy, he always got reprimanded.”

“You must be very proud of yerself,” Eric nods sagely. 

“I think it showed remarkable courtly abilities at a young age,” replies Snow White, diplomatically. 

“Oh, aye. God forbid one says the Queen was a cheat.” 

“I was a restless child,” she corrects, obviously mocking his tone, and he can’t but laugh, genuine and open for once. 

The sound seems to startle Snow White, and she stares at him for a moment, delighted, before masking her expression. Eric thinks she might do it to prevent him retreating back inside himself. He knows he’s always close to doing just that, and she is anything but unperceptive. 

The meal proceed in this manner, sometimes with William joining their conversation, mostly teasing Eric himself, often poking fun as Snow White, until she wickedly points out perhaps his attentions might be better received _elsewhere_. 

 

That makes William go as pink as the sweet spring whine in his cup. Eric leans across Snow White, lips stretching so widely he knows he’s showing too much teeth for it to be called a smile. 

“Why, William, what is this I hear? Do ye have yer eyes on some fine lass, is that it?”

Snow White’s hand is on his closest shoulder, and she laughs lightly. “More like someone’s eyes are on him, and what a _determined_ young lady she is.”

“I should think he needs someone to be determined with him,” says Eric, turning towards her, smile softening. “Or else he runs around like a headless chicken, messing about other people’s business!”

“Kidnapping horses,” agrees Snow White, shaking her head. 

William affects a scandalized expression. “Only because _other people_ cannot handle their _own_ business!”

Eric points a finger at him. “Are ye calling me inept?”

“Boys,” Snow White laughs lightly. Eric realizes abruptly her hand is on the back of his neck, soothing. “You are both very masculine and perfectly in control of your affairs, and I’m very proud of both, now please be nice to each other for an hour, hm?”

“Only because it is your birthday,” William sniffs. 

Eric scoffs at him, but he resettles back in his chair, and feels Snow’s hand discreetly slide from his neck to his arm—where it stays. It should not. All too aware of how visible it is, Eric shifts and twists his arm, catching her hand and—holding it. He’s holding it. Damnit!

Snow’s smile is so sweet and soft, though, as he keeps their hands beneath the table, that he can’t get himself to let her go. Instead of doing that, which is what he should do, he shifts and entwines their fingers—hers so small and delicate between his, strong and large. 

As the meal ends, there is dancing. Which is—not a good idea. William draws Snow White out for a turn in the field, and Eric takes the opportunity to leave the table and attempt to hide himself by the mouth of the labyrinth, where he hopes no one will think of asking him to dance. His is of course not what ends up happening, because William is a snake, and he dances the Queen to where Eric is standing, which is nowhere near the dance floor.

Eric is forced to admit he never learned to dance. William delightedly makes an offer to teach him, even going as far as grasping his wrist and dragging him in the direction of the dance floor, but then, unexpectedly, the green-eyed girl shows up at his elbow. 

“A dance, milord?” she asks politely of William. Eric is pretty sure he’s not imagining the wicked curl to her lips. William blushes hotly. Ah. This is the ‘determined girl’, then.

William cannot in good form decline a girl to torment a friend, so he lets Eric be and takes the girl’s hand instead. Eric quickly withdraws back to the shade of the labyrinth, and the Queen follows him, laughing all the way. 

“Being mean hardly suits you,” mutters Eric, crossing his arms. 

Snow laughs again and offers her hand. “Come, then. I will teach you. In the labyrinth, so you not feel like others are gawking.”

“They will gawk all the same when we disappear alone in there.”

“Then let them gawk,” Snow White shrugs delicately and starts pulling him into the labyrinth. Night has begun falling, and the sky is tainted a blushing orange that turns rapidly to pink. In the wide streets of the labyrinth, amongst the towering greenery walls, the only thing they can hear is themselves and the slow beat of the music. Stars begin to sparkle in the sky. 

Eric is very aware of her hand in his, and her proximity, and the way her body has grown into the femininity of a woman, and no longer holds any resemblance to that of a girl. 

Snow stops at the first wide cross of street and avenue, where there is plenty of room to move, and a small, rock-stoned well sits lonely in the moonlight, its bucket forgotten on the ground. Then, smiling, she shows him where his hands should go—one light on her ribs, and one cupping her hand. 

“Do not look at your feet,” she says laughing when he glances down. He grimaces. 

“If I step on ye, it’ll hurt.” 

“I am light on mine, never worry.” 

And she is. For all he is clumsy and too big and indelicate, she is graceful and elegant as a cat, and she is patient, and kind. Eric, fortunately, learns quickly, and if he’s no dancer certainly he is a fighter, and knows how to control his own body. Soon they move easily, well-matched, and they are both grinning. He dares make her twirl, towards the end of the song, and then, helpless, draws he in close to his chest, dropping his head so his nose is against her dark, fragrant hair. She smells of spring flowers and sugar. 

His hand on her ribs slides up to her back, and the other, abandoning her hand, falls on her shoulder. He knows he’s curving over her, and it’s wrong and unsightly, for a Huntsman and a Queen. But Snow’s own hands are—on his hips. Eric’ breath comes short, suddenly, as heat arcs through his chest. 

Snow’s head turns slightly, up at to the side. Her cheek brushes his. She inhales, lips parting, eyes falling shut. Erik is on the edge of an abyss. He’s desperate for this, but—this is his Queen, and she was his charge, and—it is wrong, surely—

Her fingers shift, curling, up, and her hand is beneath the fabric of his doublet and against his stomach. 

Eric surges down, catches his lips with his own, swallows her moan. She fists her hand in his undershirt, her other hand coming around to his back as she arches up to better kiss him. Breathless, almost dazed, he stumbled back and finds the wall at his back, and sits on its wall. Snow pushes close, standing between his spread thighs, and cups his face in her hands and kisses him, deep and sweet and warm. 

He pants for air, breathing heavily, crushing her close against his chest. Her hand tangles in his hair, undoing the leather cord that holds it back so it falls around their faces like a curtain. Snow break apart only a moment to pant for breath and murmur his name and then she licks his bottom lip and kisses him again. Eric is lost. He can’t think. All he can do is kiss her back with as much passion as she is giving him, and wrap his arms around her small waist and bring hr closer—

He breaks apart, gasping for breath, struggling to push her away, mortified. 

“No,” she says, nothing like calm, clinging. “I do not mind, not at all.”

“It is wrong,” he counters, urgently attempting to get her out form between his legs, where he’s grown hard and it is showing. 

Quicker than he had expected, she twists and presses the side of her hip right where he wants her less—or more, hard to tell at this point. He gasps, gripping her arms. 

“I like it,” she murmurs in his ear. “I like knowing you want me.”

Eric buries his face in her shoulder, squeezing her arms when she shifts, deliberate, against him. He chokes on a breath, thighs twitching. She is—doing something, not far from rolling her hipbone against him, and it is driving him _mad_. He aches with it, with the need to fall over the edge. Panting harshly, he lifts his head and finds her mouth, kissing her nothing like gentle, now. He clutches her close, and loves the way she moves and the sounds she makes, and how she strokes back his hair tenderly and brushes her lips over his eyelids and brow before kissing him again. He realizes he’s moving his own hips now, in rhythm with hers, little more than twitch, but it’s still not—what he should…

A voice cuts through his haze, suddenly. They freeze. 

“King James,” she whispers, tense.

The little speech-giving King. Eric gulps air, unclenching his hands from her arms with effort. “Go,” he manages. 

She gives him a dismayed look. “Eric,” she starts. 

He shakes his head, “Go. He can’t see you like this. Go ahead.”

“I do not care what he believes, or what anyone—“

“I do,” he cuts across her, stubborn. “I care what they think of you.”

She scowls. “None will think less of me for being with you. And those who would I will dismiss, for I do not want them close.”

“Do not affect foolishness, for it doesn’t suit you,” he growls, and moves her away to stand, leaning against the wall to stare down into its depths. There is water there. It’ll probably be cold as ice. He can use that, right about now. 

“You’ll be gone by the time I return. You are always gone, whenever I turn my head away.”

“I don’t belong here.”

“You belong wherever you want to be,” she counters, and wraps her hands about his face and forces him to turn to her, eyes bright with anger. “None could stop you, or claim to have the right to deny you. I want you here, with me. I always will, and I will never turn you away, or tire of you—though you do so frustrate me!” 

He attempts to pull away, and she grits her teeth and holds fast, deceptively strong, her face earnest. 

“Eric, go now if you must, and I know you will, but know this—I will wait, and I will not give up on you. Regardless of your own thoughts on the matter, I _know_ you to be worthy, and I want no one else at my side but you. I will wait, so you can leave, if you feel that you need to, but do not _ever_ make the mistake of thinking I have given up, or that I would shun you and refuse your company. I crave it. _Remember that_.”

Eric manages to break away, shocked, and he is still shaking when she turns around and storms away, visibly furious. Eric almost— _almost_ —feels sorry for King James. Almost, because a large part of his mind is too occupied struggling to pull itself back together. He grabs the bucket and throws it in the well, and wastes no time splashing his face with ice-cold water that stings and makes his fingers go numb. He stays only long enough to ensure he looks presentable, and tie back his hair, and then he stalks out of the labyrinth, through the now quieter corridors, and out to the stables. 

His horse is saddled in minutes, and in half an hour he is slamming shut the door of his cabin, restless and overcome by the urge to sink on the edge of his bed and sob.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These days, now once again a man that, if not good, is at least functional, he again rarely sleeps past the waking of the sun. He also has almost entirely stopped drinking, because he can tell now that if he starts he will not stop, and once free of a demon he is understandably reluctant to sink into it again. 
> 
> It had been an experiment. He had gone almost four years without drink, and he had thought himself strong enough to stop when he knew he had had enough. 
> 
> Turns out he couldn’t. The experiment failed. Alright, it could have ended there.
> 
> But the gods have a twisted sense of humor.

Eric rarely sleeps past dawn. He lives the life of a man that must provide for himself, and once for a budging family, and sleeping in has never been an option when what he needs to be doing is hunting and getting food to his table. 

After Sarah’s death, he’d fallen into a swift downwards spiral, rarely working, but needing little with which to sustain himself, and that mostly in liquid form. The only reason he had not become a slip of a man, bone and skin and anger for blood, had been that he’d always been a ludicrously healthy creature, too big and tall by half and with muscle mass to spare. 

Then, he did sleep past dawn. Days had blurred by, one blending to the other, featureless and grey, tasteless, morning to afternoon to evening to morning. He has slept when he was sleepy and had risen when he was no longer sleepy. 

These days, now once again a man that, if not good, is at least functional, he again rarely sleeps past the waking of the sun. He also has almost entirely stopped drinking, because he can tell now that if he starts he will not stop, and once free of a demon he is understandably reluctant to sink into it again. 

It had been an experiment. He had gone almost four years without drink, and he had thought himself strong enough to stop when he knew he had had enough. 

Turns out he couldn’t. The experiment failed. Alright, it could have ended there.

But the gods have a twisted sense of humor. 

It’s mid-morning and he can tell by the way the sunlight pours over him like honey. There are other things he can tell. 

The windows are open, which they were not when he saw them last, which was… sometime in the last—week, possibly? He doesn’t remember closing them. Or opening them. Or… getting home, at any point. 

He sits up and the world sways. Damnit. He really outdid himself this time. He drags his hand down his face—finds a beard and a cut on his cheekbone. Oh, bloody fucking hell. He did it again. 

Then, all of a sudden, he realizes he’s also not alone. 

Sitting to his table, on one of his two decrepit, rough wooden chairs, sits the Queen, hands folded elegantly on her lap. Her face is as lovely as always, and as clean of expression as freshly fallen snow. She’s wearing the small silver circlet she wears out of court, and a simple but fine dress, and her hair is loose and dark around her shoulders. 

This is new. He’s never seen Snow White furious. On normal circumstances, Eric would sit back and appreciate how it makes her eyes glow, but the delight of it is rather leeched out by the fact her anger is very clearly directed at him. 

He stays very still for a moment, and then shifts slightly because his knee is aching—Gods know what he did with it—and his bed creaks. Snow White glides gracefully to her feet and drops a letter on his table, eyes fixed on the scarred wood of the top. 

“The dwarves send their affections,” she says calmly. “They asked me to make certain this letter reached you.”

And she turns for the door, without another word. Eric blinks at her, and he knows he should be keeping his quiet and letting her leave, because she has never been this angry, not at him, possibly not at anything, but—he can’t. 

“Is that all?” he blurts. 

The Queen stops with her hand on the doorbell, and for a moment she is perfectly still. Then she turns and stares him down, mouth gone pale with anger. 

“Is there anything else you would like me to say?” she murmurs. “Do you remember anything about the last three days?” 

“Three?” he asks faintly. 

“Well, I only heard of the last two,” Snow says calmly, so calmly. “When you got arrested.” 

Eric looks at her blankly for a moment. “Arrested. I never got arrested before.” 

“Is that so? I have never had to go to prison to take someone out of a cell, myself, previously. New experiences for everyone.” 

“Why would they call you?” Eric drags a hand down his face. “Surely a Queen ahs better things to do than… deal with drunken imbeciles.” 

“They tried William first,” Snow White concedes. “Except, of course, he is not in Tabor. He is traveling to Meridiana. With his wife.” 

Eric feels cold wash through his spine. “Wife.” 

“Yes,” Snow White tilts her head, eyes like ice. “He got married.”

“On Sunday,” Eric says, closing his eyes. Bloody fucking hell. 

“Do you even know what day it is?” Snow asks softly. 

“Aye, two days late for a wedding,” growls Eric, shoving the covers away to stand. His legs, at least, work to his commands. It takes him a moment to realize he’s shirtless and in his underpants. He yanks his breeches on and collapses into one of the chairs, dropping his face into his hands. 

Snow White sighs. As she moves across the room the hem of her dress drags across the rough wooden floorboards, catches on a splinter, tugs free with a small ripping sound. Snow pays it no mind, walking with her head bent low, long fingers laced together. Now Eric can hear the sounds of low voices outside the house; the Queen’s guards. 

He lifts his head. 

“Why are ye here?” 

Snow glances at him. “You were not alright to be left alone.” 

“I’ve been alone like that before, and I survived.”

“After a fashion.” 

Snow White stares at him. Eric grits his teeth. 

“You have done real damage this time,” she says softly. “What am I to do with you, Eric?” 

“Toss me into some dungeon and be done with it?” 

“Would that that could fix this.” 

“William might appreciate it.” 

“I hardly dare ask him about you presently,” Snow glances away. 

“Aye,” Eric rubs his forehead. “That’s his right.” 

Snow sighs, and gracefully folds into the chair across the table from him, looking tired and sad. 

“Only tell me you did not do this simply to prove to us that you do not deserve me,” she says, sounding strained. 

Eric looks at her, incredulous. “If you think I did this with any sort of thought at all, you overestimate me greatly. I wanted a drink. I thought I could handle it. That was all the thinking involved.” 

Snow presses a delicate hand to her forehead. “I suppose that would have been a very shrewd maneuver.”

“Not that I need to prove anything,” he mutters. “Obviously.”

Snow White gives him a sharp look. 

Suddenly, Eric is furious. “Why will ye not just give it up?” he hisses at her, heart beating madly in his chest, like it wants to escape it and fly to hers. Damn the bloody thing, and damn the Queen, and damn this whole stupid bloody thing. 

“Why will you not open your eyes?” she asks right back. 

“You think I have the makings of a King?” he demands, sitting back in his chair to gesture around at his cabin. She doesn’t even glance, she just keeps staring at him. Like he’s the only thing in this decrepit cabin that even exists. She ahs that way of looking at people and making it like they’ve never breathed air until she saw them. Like she’s the heart pumping blood through Eric’ veins. 

“I hardly care,” she says, and it brings him up short. “I am a Queen. I don’t need a King. I don’t want one. I want you because I love you. Can it not be that simple?” 

Eric is speechless. 

“I know what holds you back,” she says on a sigh. “But I have been trying to tell you, for so long. None of those things matter. I do not need a man that will rule my country for me. I do not need a man at all. I want you by my side. Do you see there is a difference? I do not need you to be educated, or articulate, or even polite. I love you just as you are.”

“And you would,” Eric flounders momentarily. “what? You would—what do you want from me?” he asks finally, helpless. 

Snow White looks at him, eyes tender and soft. “Whatever you will give me, to be perfectly frank. I—I realize that I have been pushing this. I had thought that—perhaps you do not feel for me as I had believed, and—“

“That is nonsense,” Eric growls. “I love you desperately.” And what a romantic way he has of declaring it. “But I—Gods be good. I am a Huntsman. That is all I know. The only life I have ever led. And I do not know—I cannot think of… a family. I am…” he waves a hand, voice failing him. 

“ _I_ am very young,” she says. “There is time for that. We will burn that bridge when we cross it.” 

Eric’s mouth quirks. “That is not how that saying goes, girl.”

“I am a Queen, the saying will say what I want it to say,” she huffs. Eric scoffs a short, dark laugh. 

“In any case,” she says, dismissing the subject with a graceful gesture of her fine pale hand. “If we do get married and we do have a family, those shall be my children, and they will be heirs to my throne. I do not need a foreign, pompous brat to come and give them last-name and blood. They will be queens and kings at birth. And,” she adds, blinking. “probably very good with axes.” 

Eric scoffs and drops his forehead to his hand. “And awful with bows and arrows.”

“That is the only reason I am keeping Will around,” she lies blithely, arching her brows. Eric laughs. 

The following moment of silence stretches. 

“I do not want you to worry about being a King,” she says at length. “Consort duties are,” she waves a hand. “It hardly matters. There will be me, and William, and—the court will help. But that is not…” she breathes in deeply, and looks at him fully, eyes soft and blue-green. “Do you _want_ to be with me?”

Eric stares at her. “That is a pointless question. I should not even need to answer.”

“ _I_ need you to answer.”

He spreads his hands, palm-up in the table, and surrenders. “Yes.” 

Snow White releases a shaky sigh, as if, for a moment, she might have feared his denial, his rejection. Preposterous. 

“None of the other things matter,” she murmurs, rising from her chair and rounding the table to crouch beside him, her small hands on the hard muscle of this thigh. He is so small and delicate. “Imagine I were just a girl, and you were just a man, and nothing stood between us, statues or education or age—nothing. What would you do, then, Eric?” 

He feels unhinged, unmade. Without thought he leans down, tilts her face up by the chin and kisses her. Her mouth is very soft and warm; it tastes sweet like evening wine. His rough fingers run along the line of her jaw to her neck, and she pushes up into his mouth, soft little tongue parting his lips. His hand finds the nape of her neck and cradles it. Her left hand, small and dainty, finds and wraps around his knee. Eric hisses and breaks the kiss, drags his lips along her cheek to the angle of her jaw. 

Maybe this time he’s not going to pull back. He’s tired and his body aches and he has a hangover that will last days. He is broken and his edges are pushing through his thin, fragile skin. And she is here and she can put him back together, mend the broken bones and knit the skin and—

A knock on the door. Eric’s eyes snap open, but he doesn’t move, breathing against her neck, inhaling the scent of her hair. 

“Yes,” she calls, carding her fingers through his hair and finding a tangle. 

“A letter from the Castle, Your Highness,” the guard says, and he sounds apologetic, damn him. 

Snow bends her head to his kiss bare shoulder, and with a weary sigh, stands. Eric lets his hand fall from her shoulder down her arm to her hand, and catches it. 

“I do not need an answer now,” she says before he can speak, tenderly combing back loose hair from his face. “Only consider it. As if we were just a girl and a boy—“

“Man.”

“A girl and a _very old man_ ,” she huffs, widening her eyes at him and pushing at his forehead. He grins. “Oh, you are terrible.”

Eric hums and sits back in his chair, letting her go.

“I will think about it,” he promises, more seriously. “I will find you when I have an answer to give you.” 

She nods, eyes lingering on his for a moment before she finally goes back to the door, and opens it. Eric rubs his face over his hand for a long moment, and wonders just what he’s going to do with his life, and the people in it.


	6. A Good Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eric grimaces. “I suppose I deserved that.”
> 
> “You did,” Will says emphatically. “But I wasn’t done talking. You’re a self-centered prick and you love being in pain, and God knows you’re more animal than man half the time, but damn it, Eric, you’re not the only bloody person in your life any longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No excuses for the unforgivable delay in updates of this fic. Suffice it to say I feel like shit. Life has been... intense, lately. But I'm going to finish this fic in February, come hell or high water.

Eric’s been to this courtyard, to this castle, before. He’s been here many times since the war, and almost all of them have been happy occasions to a certain measure. Still, as he looks around, he feels his chest tight with the reminder of the first time he had arrived here—carrying with him the body of an innocent young girl that had been in his care and whom he’d failed.

There is a disorienting moment of dissonance as he remembers kissing those cool lifeless lips, and then he remembers Snow’s lips against his own months ago, in his wretched little hosue in the woods.

He dismounts and hands his reins over to one of the stable boys. One of the attendants has already fled the courtyard, presumably to inform the master and mistress of the castle of his arrival.

Upon his son’s marriage just over three months ago, the Duke had ceded his place as master of the house and retired to a small, more manageable and less demanding household in the hills. By then William already handled most of the responsibilities that feel upon them due to their social standing and blood, and while still young his father was a tired man, veteran of many wars. No one could begrudge him his rest.

William was now officially known as the Duke, and expected back at court sometime this week after he had settled back into his home. Him and his lovely young wife had had a long idyllic honeymoon traveling, Eric had been told, across several country borders.

“Her ladyship,” a servant says suddenly, bowing deeply. Eric whirls around to stare at the great doors.

He knows this girl, he thinks—he knows her but his memory fails him entirely. She is short and slender, with forest-green eyes and hair the color of untamed fire. He features are sharp and elvish, arranged perfectly into an elegant sort of beauty, classic and universal. She’s dressed simply for her station, in a fine woolen day-gown the color of fresh milk. In Tabor, tradition demands a lady newly married to wear pale colors for six months after the wedding.

She stops at the last step, the wool of her gown brushing the stone, and presses her palms together, lacing her fingers.

“Huntsman,” she greets.

“Milady,” Eric says, bowing his head awkwardly. Manners. Manners are important.

The girl studies him. Unlike Snow, she uses her hair in the conventional fashion, gathered up close to her skull, and it bares a long and graceful neck, upon which her head is tilted at an angle as she considers him.

“You’ve come, of course, to offer your sincerest apologies,” she says calmly, descending the last step into the dirt of the courtyard as if she is entering a marble-floored ballroom. She spreads her hands as she speaks. “You were hunting and time, understandably, got away from you. You were detained, or otherwise occupied.”

She comes to stand right in front of him, green eyes clear like pond water. “You were most certainly not drunk out of your mind, and you were definitely not arrested for disorderly behavior.”

Eric opens his mouth, but she raises a hand to forestall a reply, and she’s moving now, slowly, around him. Her eyes sweep up and down him, assessing and calculating. Eric frowns, feeling hostility grow hot in his chest and the pit of his stomach where helpless anger used to coil, in a time gone past.

“He’ll know,” he says despite her gesture not to speak.

“Raise your chin,” she says instead of answering. Her tone is pensive but firm, and Eric finds himself obeying before he can think twice about it. She’s even more delicate than Snow, pale and fragile. “Straighten your spine and push back you shoulders—like so. Look at the soldiers here. Stand as they do; straighten your legs, show your full height. Look me in the eye when we speak.”

She comes to stand in front of him, and she seems not the least bit cowed beneath the force of his glare.

“You’ll not do,” she shakes her head slowly, sighing as if this pains her. “No one would think you a King.”

Eric feels blood heat his cheeks in humiliation. An angry, scathing retort jumps to his tongue, but he presses his teeth together and settles for glowering at her. This seems in equal parts to amuse and please her, and she smiles a private, subtle little smile that implies he’s just passed some sort of test.

He has to laugh. William’s gone and married the only woman in Tabor with as much character as Snow White.

“But never fear,” she adds, turning around. She looks at him over her shoulder as she gestures with a hand for him to follow her up the steps. “We’ll have you looking the part in no time.”

“Looking like a King is not being a King,” he says, falling into step behind her and to her right. She stops walking so abruptly he almost smacks into her.

“A King walks ahead of his subjects,” she corrects, pointing at the space at her side with her delicate chin. “And in step with his friends.”

Eric steps up to her side and manages his strides to keep pace with her.

“Looking the part is half the job,” she says with a sly smile. “Appearances are everything, Eric. So long as you look like a King and people treat you like a King, what you actually do or say is less relevant. They’ll forgive certain—quirks of character,” she raised a hand. “So long as you cut an impressive enough figure.”

Eric thinks back at the few times he has worn good, expensive clothes as opposed as his usual hunting ones. People had certainly treated him differently.

“You can’t very well disguise as donkey as a stallion,” he mutters.

“I most certainly can and will,” she replies.

They get through the main hall, and she leads him through twisting coils of hallways and rooms, dodging bowing servants and soldiers (“No. You will not move out of their way. _They_ will move out of _your_ way. Nod at them, but do not engage them.”) and out into the gardens.

“William has taken a taste for falconing,” she explains. “I allow it because his fierce pet has eaten most of the rats the cats didn’t get.”

“Rats eat roaches,” says Eric automatically.

“The bats eat the roaches.”

They exit into the grand garden, and for a moment the sudden sunlight blinds Eric, but he’s glad to be out in the open again. Despite now spending more and more time in the Castle with Snow White, he finds that towering stone buildings still feel like a cage. The Duke’s castle is different, though because it is not built upon and outcrop, but on flat land. Less defensible, but much more pleasant.

He hears it cry out before he sees it flying, scything trough the air with stunning grace.

“He’s by the lake,” she says, lacing her hands again. “Just follow this path over. If a guard gives you trouble, look offended and stalk by them with a purpose.”

“Or you could give them an order to let me through.”

“But then how will you learn?” she smiles innocently at him. “Best of luck.”

“And where are you going?” he asks as she turns away.

“To find a proper tailor for proper nobleman clothes,” she says over her shoulder. “Those you’re wearing aren’t fit for a horse.”

Eric looks down at his hunting clothes. They’re old and worn, but moderately clean and nothing is torn. They’re not that bad. He’s worn worse. He doesn’t think that will win him any points on this intelligence war with William’s clever new wife, though, so he shakes his head and mutely starts down the path towards the lake.

Luckily he does not, in fact, run into any guards willing to give him trouble. The ones he does run into remember him from the war, or have seen him in William’s company often enough not to stop him.

William is wearing the dark blue and silver of a newlywed man, and his hair is much longer than Eric has seen it in the time they have known each other. His skin is darkly tan, which makes his eyes look that much lighter.

He arches a brow when Eric stops next to him, lips pursing.

“Who dragged you in here?” he asks quietly.

“I came by my own choice,” Eric hesitates. “Your honeymoon… went well?”

“You’re supposed to get me drunk to get details,” mumbles William.

Eric winces. “I try not to do that these days.”

William hums quietly, and raises his arm as his falcon swoops in close to the water, slicing through the air on outstretched wings. It comes to rest elegantly on William’s forearm, on top of a thick leather vambrace. It mantles its wings carefully before settling, and fixes one of his eyes unflinchingly on Eric. It seems to the Huntsman as if the bird sees right through him.

Eric swallows. “I—Will, I’m sorry. I know what I did was unforgivable, but I—“

“Nothing is unforgivable,” mutters Will. “I’m really bloody angry, I’m not going to lie, but I don’t hate you. This isn’t—“ he waves his free hand angrily. “You’re a prick, and self-centered, and you’re enamored with the idea of being a victim of your own stupidity—“

Eric grimaces. “I suppose I deserved that.”

“You _did_ ,” Will says emphatically. “But I wasn’t done talking. You’re a self-centered prick and you love being in pain, and God knows you’re more animal than man half the time, but damn it, Eric, you’re not the only bloody person in your life any longer.”

“I know that,” Eric says quietly.

“Do you?” William scowls at him. The falcon shifts its wings, sensing irritation in its master. Eric is all too aware of how easily the bird can peck his eye out. “Because as far as I’m aware I seem to be your only friend and I don’t remembering seeing you at my own bloody wedding, which was amusing considering you were supposed to be my _best man_. And by amusing—“ he adds, lifting a hand angrily to forestall Eric’s shocked comment. “I mean bloody fucking _infuriating_.”

Eric’s shoulders slump. “I didn’t know.”

“I kept it to myself,” William says quietly. “Funnily enough I thought you’d be here in time for me to tell you before the wedding.”

A long moment of silence.

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, you ruddy well should be,” Will rubs a hand roughly down his face, then gestures for one of the servants. He digs in his pocket for a small little leather helmet, and puts it delicately on top of the falcon’s head, covering its eyes. With utmost care, he moves the falcon to the attendant’s vambrace and gestures for the man to take the falcon away. With jerky, angry motions, he starts tugging at his own. “I couldn’t believe you didn’t even—Snow told me you were away at a hunt, but for God’s sake, would it have killed you to keep track of time? I hope you know as a King you’ll be expected to remember what fucking _day_ it is.”

Will keeps talking angrily, but Eric brushes his hand away and deftly undoes the straps on the heavy leather, carefully maneuvering it down and away from Will’s hand. Meant as protection and support, the leather is stiff and thick, and the inside of it could scrape skin raw if handled carelessly.

Will’s jaw works.

“As King,” Eric repeats dully, turning the vambrace in his hands. “I think I’ll be expected to do a lot of things I can’t do on my own.”

William snorts derisively.

“Will, I need your help,” Eric says softly, staring at the leather because he can’t look into William’s furious eyes, hard like chips of precious stone. “I can’t do this on my own and you know it. I can’t—a _King_? Gods. It’s insane, but—Snow wants that, and Gods help me, I want her. I’ll do anything for—“ he huffs, irritated.

“Eloquent as always,” William laughs. He inhales deeply and rubs both his hands roughly up and down his face tiredly. “Gods, indeed.”

He drops his hands and stares at him for a long time, pale blue eyes growing soft. The skin on his straight aristocratic nose is beginning to peel from the glare of the sun in foreign lands, and his full lips are chapped. He looks more like a boy that he’s had since Eric met him.

“Well,” he says at length. “We have so much work ahead of us that I can’t begin to explain it to you in simple words. For one, stop hunching your shoulders. You’re a tall man; use that height to your advantage. Lift your chin—honestly, have you never been taught to stand up straight, what sort of education have you had? Pull your shoulders back.”

“I haven’t had any,” Eric says, cross. “My father was a farm-hand. We didn’t regularly have dinners in a Castle.”

“I like the pride, but maybe a little less sneer. No, that’s disbelief, come on, control your face.”

Eric huffs, looking up at the sky.

“I can’t be King, Gods. It’s madness.”

“Not a lot of people call me ‘Gods’, but I guess I’m flattered.”

Eric looks back down, and Will is grinning like he’s expecting to be glared at, but Eric isn’t in the mood to be playful now. He has to tell Will the truth, he realizes. He absolutely must. This lie cannot stand. Will needs to know exactly Who Eric is—if he doesn’t already, by some glorious miracle.

Will’s face melts from playfulness to severity, and Eric can see the exact moment he becomes alert. The shift is subtle enough to almost be missed, but it is there—he shifts his weight, squares his shoulders, straightens his spine. He isn’t dressed like a soldier today—he’s wearing grey leather breeches, a simple white shirt with canvas-reinforced sleeves as a second precaution beneath the falconing vambraces, and a sleeveless calf-long blue silk overshirt cinched at the waist, embroidered with silver thread. He’s never looked more like a pleasant nobleman. But his posture changes and suddenly he might as well be carrying a sword—he is a warrior once again.

“Spit it out,” he says quietly. He’s still holding Eric’s gaze as he flicks his hand to order the company away, with the easy and understated grace of a man accustomed to authority. The servants scatter to a prudent distance, well out of earshot but in sight to be called back. “Let’s have it.”

Eric inhales, braces for violence. “I wasn’t hunting.”

He can see the moment William understand what it is he’s saying. It’s like the surface of a lake, freezing over.

“Are you telling me,” he asks casually, voice controlled, eyes hard as stones. “That you missed my wedding because you were drunk?”

Eric nods mutely.

William is in his face at once, fisting his hands on the front of his leather vest and dragging him forward, teeth bared, eyes like ships of ice—and then, abruptly, he’s pushing away, staggering backwards and running his hands furiously through his hair. Astonishingly, he laughs, a low and bitter sound that hits Eric in the gut worse than any punch.

“Gods,” he says, and laughs a bit more. “ _Gods_ , you really do love to suffer, don’t you.”

“It’s alright,” rasps Eric. “It’s your right to—“

“No,” says Will flatly, eyes like ice. “It’s _not_ my right to hurt you, though—“he laughs again. “I’m not going to say I’m not tempted to smash in your nose, which I suspect is half your intention, although I think—“ he stops, sighs long and tiredly.

“I don’t want that,” manages Eric. “My face is rather all I have.”

William looks at him like he’s stupider than the mud he’s standing on.

“You think you’re not ready to be a King because you got drunk and missed my wedding?”

Eric spreads his hands incredulously. “Yes? It sounds logical.”

“But you told me the truth,” says Will. “Even though Snow White and Briar Rose gave you the easy way out, with that lie about a hunt. Which, by the way, was believable, and I had the time to fume about it and let it go in the last six months, so. You came clean.”

He blinks at Eric, expression softening. “Thank you for that.”

“You’re my friend. I _hope_ —we’re friends,” says Eric, stilted and awkward. “I didn’t want to lie.”

“Some lies are alright,” sighs Will. “But thank you anyway. I do appreciate it. We _are_ friends, Eric.”

Eric’s shoulders slump. Careless of the people watching, he sinks to the grass and leans his elbows on his knees, weak with relief. Shaking his head, he looks p at where Will is still watching him, attentive and calm.

“A drunkard King, Will?” he asks helplessly.

The Duke exhales and looks up at the sky. A long moment passes before he looks at Eric again, eyes soft with fondness.

“That’s just something we’re going to have to work on. You’re never going to be ready to be a King, Eric. It’s not one of those things you’re at some point finally _ready_ to face. It’s one of those things you learn as you go. You're a good man. We can make you into a great one with time.”

Eric just stares at him, throat working. Will tilts his head and comes closer, sitting on the grass next to him.

“It’s going to be a lot of work,” he admits. “You’ll have to learn to stand right, to walk right, how to hold your head, how to speak, to give orders, to treat servants and courtiers and commoners, to carry a cape of velvet with the same certainty you do a steel armor, consort duties, foreign duties, protocol, traditions, obligations—it’s going to take a lot of time. It’s going to be difficult and demanding and frankly mostly miserable.”

“Thank you for that,” mutters Eric.

“You’re welcome. But Eric, that’s all just accessory. _Any_ one can be a king consort. That’s just knowledge. What I really want to know is if you’ve finally grown the backbone to understand that she’s worth it, and that she—we all—think _you’re_ worth it.”

Eric nods, voice strangled somewhere in his throat. Will nods as well. He smiles, and his hand is suddenly in Eric’s hair, gripping and shaking him fondly.

“I’m going to torture you so much,” he says affectionately. “It’s going to be bloody brilliant.” 


End file.
